Two of Montreal’s best known editorial cartoonists — always professional rivals, yet also great friends — have been tagged for an honorary doctorate by Concordia University.

Terry Mosher, a.k.a. Aislin, of the Montreal Gazette and Serge Chapleau of La Presse, will be standing side by side during the convocation ceremony at Place des Arts on June 11.

Mosher and Chapleau have skewered political leaders for five decades. Both have won several prizes, including multiple National Newspaper Awards for their work. Chapleau was named Member of the Order of Canada and Mosher was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Concordia is bestowing an award on the two satirists “for holding the powerful to account through their sharp ‘penmanship.’ ”

In separate interviews Tuesday, both artists ventured a version on a theme of being the bad boys of yore who got paid to be a nuisance — tasked with afflicting the powerful with their pens.

Mosher and Chapleau say they’re pleased to be getting the award together, although they come to their drawing boards from two different solitudes when it comes to language politics

“It’s so political, but we’ve been friends for a very long time. I’m English and he’s French, but we’re just two guys getting along,” Mosher quipped, even when they don’t agree on a subject. “There are so few of us in the business” of editorial cartooning. And Montreal, he added, is the best city in North America to be a cartoonist.

It’s weird, being old friends — “and, he’s older,” Chapleau said of Mosher. It’s fun getting recognition from an English-language university, he added. He promised to use some French words at the convocation, something about the award being a great honour, fantastic and marvellous.

Mosher mentioned wearing “a funny hat” to the convocation.

Mosher and Chapleau say they’re lucky to have had job that paid them all these years to poke fun at folks. “For us it’s a game,” Chapleau said. “I never expected to be paid to laugh at people.”

But joking aside, the award is a welcome recognition from the community, they said.

“It’s a big deal,” Mosher said. “Someone must get a photo of us wearing funny hats, together.”

Concordia will honour nine other individuals who have made their mark in the fields of law, art, Indigenous rights, journalism, nanoscience, business and philanthropy.

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